Shahid Buttar

Shahid Buttar

Director of Grassroots Advocacy

Shahid leads EFF's grassroots, student, and community outreach efforts. He's a constitutional lawyer focused on the intersection of community organizing and policy reform as a lever to shift legal norms, with roots in communities across the country resisting mass surveillance. From 2009 to 2015, he led the Bill of Rights Defense Committee as Executive Director. In 2018, Shahid ran for Congress, seeking to represent California's 12th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He received over 17,000 votes in the primary election.

After graduating from Stanford Law School in 2003, where he grew immersed in the movement to stop the war in Iraq, Shahid worked for a decade in Washington, D.C. He first worked in private practice for a California-based law firm, with public interest litigation projects advancing campaign finance reform and marriage equality for same-sex couples (as early as 2004, when LGBT rights remained politically marginal). From 2005 to 2008, he helped build a national progressive legal network and managed the communications team at the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, before founding the program to combat racial & religious profiling at Muslim Advocates in 2008.

Deeplinks Posts by Shahid

A bipartisan group of House members are preparing to introduce measures widely supported by their colleagues that would rein in NSA domestic surveillance and protect encryption. But a change in procedure adopted by the House leadership may deny the House a chance to even consider their proposal.
Based...

Congress has no business approving government programs that neither it nor the public understands. Yet policymakers have repeatedly authorized surveillance activities without doing their homework. Over the eight years since enacting reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Congress has failed to gain a functional understanding of NSA Internet...

Legislators in Rhode Island have advanced a dangerous bill that would duplicate and exacerbate the faults of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Four organizations joined EFF this week in signing a letter and supporting memo to state legislators explaining the bill's faults and why...

When setting out on a recent speaking tour in the wake of launching the Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) earlier this spring, I expected to encounter supporters of digital rights from all walks of life and backgrounds. My expectations, however, were vastly exceeded by what I witnessed in the nine...

A federal district court in Pennsylvania recently issued a terrible joint decision in Fields v. City of Philadelphia and Geraci v. City of Philadelphia, holding for the first time that "observing and recording" police activities is not protected by the First Amendment unless an observer visibly challenges police...

A now-vacated hearing over whether to require Apple to undermine the security of its users prompted an ongoing controversy over government access to encrypted devices. While a federal court in San Bernardino may never rule on the flood of arguments supporting Apple's defense of...

We're excited to announce the formation of a new grassroots network, the Electronic Frontier Alliance. Bringing together community and campus organizations across the U.S., the Alliance will serve as an increasingly vital hub for activism and organizing addressing a spectrum of civil liberties and digital...

With a presidential election looming this fall, mass media and social media will be more focused on policy issues over the next several months than likely at any other point until 2020. We’ve put together a questionnaire for the candidates to invite them to explain their own policy platforms. We’ll...

On Thursday, Apple filed its motion to vacate last week's controversial judicial order requiring it to undermine device security for its iOS operating system. The company's filing explains in compelling and forceful terms not only how the government demands to which it responds would undermine...

EFF, Fight for the Future, and Encryption Supporters Protest Outside the San Francisco Apple Store Dozens of people gathered at the Apple Store in San Francisco this evening to shout their support for the company's position defending privacy and security in the face of irresponsible government demands.